Extra-Terrestrial Megastructures detected around a star?

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Like the article says, probably not. But it's an interesting mystery at the very least.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/extra-terrestrial-life-are-artificial-megastructures-circling-distant-star-8462852-1524209

The Article wrote:

Alien hunters are getting excited about strange activity taking place around a star between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, some 1,485 light years from earth. Some scientists are speculating a cluster of objects orbiting KIC 8462852 COULD be giant "megastructures" constructed by a technologically advanced alien civilisation in order to harvest the sun's energy.quote]

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Type: Discussion • Score: 11 • Views: 8,995 • Replies: 111

@rosborne979,

The farther out we look, the stranger the things we find are. Curioser and curiouser . . .

0 Replies

Gunga is gonna love this . . .

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Excited?! I am terrified - they are stealing our sun's energy - we are all going to freeze and die.

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Not so fast. The "aliens did it" is but one of a series of hypotheses that may explain the features . However, imagine what wed become were it true.
I think our sp-ace programs would be stoked in an effort to "establish our territory" within this section of our galaxy. Dont you think?

Would they be friendly, hostile, or merely indifferent? On the Kardashev scale, they would probably be a class III civilization since they would be "mining" their solar systems energy source.

3 Replies

Go ask Quehoniaomath.
I'm sure he'll know.

1 Reply

@George,

he probably went off to the mother ship. His work here is done.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Not so fast. The "aliens did it" is but one of a series of hypotheses that may explain the features.

I think speculation about what would happen if it *were* true is where the most fun is in this story.

The reality is that it's probably going to turn out to be some combination of effects like a variable star with a gas giant which has been impacted or something. But if it really was aliens building Dysan solar collectors, that would be super cool for us here.

I can see us scrambling to try to intercept some type of data transmission from that area. The merest leakage of knowledge from a technology that advanced might contain groundbreaking information for us.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

Excited?! I am terrified - they are stealing our sun's energy - we are all going to freeze and die.

They are stealing their own Sun's energy, not ours.

0 Replies

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Gunga is gonna love this . . .

It's too realistic a possibility for him. He prefers pyramids on Mars, and if I had to compare the likelihood of the two events... Pyramids on Mars comes in even lower. Smile

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

However, imagine what wed become were it true.
I think our sp-ace programs would be stoked in an effort to "establish our territory" within this section of our galaxy. Dont you think?

The first thing I would do is to point almost every telescope we've got at that area in a desperate attempt to gather some type of data transmission and then try like hell to understand it.

I like to imagine us receiving leakage from their version of TV/Video signals and gaining a voyeur's view of life on their world. And while every day people were mesmerized by alien soap operas the scientific community would be desperately gleaning the data for any hint at their understanding of physics. What if they actually broadcast educational shows. Sesame Street for them might be quantum cosmological equations for us.

I can imagine whole swaths of earth economies devoted simply to data gathering and interpretation. Bits of physics knowledge might fall out of the data stream like gold strikes, any one of which might be sufficient to completely overturn our understanding of physics with civilization shattering potential. Without ever making physical contact, and long before they ever became aware of our presence, the data leaking from that source might remake us or destroy us.

1 Reply

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

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@rosborne979,

Almost 1500 light years away? They could be out of business by now. It's not as though we would have a conversation with them.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Almost 1500 light years away? They could be out of business by now. It's not as though we would have a conversation with them.

Absolutely right. I wouldn't expect to. All we would be able to do is look and listen to anything coming from that area. But if they are like us, then they may be spilling lots of data into the night sky.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

he probably went off to the mother ship. His work here is done.

If only

0 Replies

@rosborne979,

If theyre a classII, theyve been using the electromagnetic spectrum far longer than us (maybe thousands of years longer). So , if they are for real and this hypothesis is even worth considering, we should have been getting "I LOVE LUCY" for many centuries, no?

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Not so fast. The "aliens did it" is but one of a series of hypotheses that may explain the features . However, imagine what wed become were it true.
I think our sp-ace programs would be stoked in an effort to "establish our territory" within this section of our galaxy. Dont you think?

Would they be friendly, hostile, or merely indifferent? On the Kardashev scale, they would probably be a class III civilization since they would be "mining" their solar systems energy source.

I think humanity is in no position to engage in a territorial dispute with a Class II civilization.

0 Replies

@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

The reality is that it's probably going to turn out to be some combination of effects like a variable star with a gas giant which has been impacted or something. But if it really was aliens building Dysan solar collectors, that would be super cool for us here.

Like the existence of Europeans was super cool for the Native Americans??

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Almost 1500 light years away? They could be out of business by now. It's not as though we would have a conversation with them.

Like OmSigDavid, I am extremely grateful for the travel limitations imposed by the speed of light.

If it does turn out to be an alien civilization capable of building a Dyson Swarm, I recommend that humanity does its best to hide from them.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

If theyre a classII, theyve been using the electromagnetic spectrum far longer than us (maybe thousands of years longer). So , if they are for real and this hypothesis is even worth considering, we should have been getting "I LOVE LUCY" for many centuries, no?

Not exactly. If what we are seeing of them now is a Class II, then that's what they were 1500 years ago. Also, we don't know how long it takes for a civilization to get from Class I to Class II. It might be hundreds of years or it might be millions.

What matters though is what we see now because those are the EM Waves which are arriving at Earth today. So if we're seeing a Class II Civ, then we would also expect to be receiving Class II Civ level signals. That of course assumes that a Class II Civ even uses EM as a communications system any more. And even if they do, I'm not sure if we would be able to make any sense of it. It might be some type of dimensionally folded quantum packet stream or something and we wouldn't even have a theory to translate it, much less the technology to handle it. On the other hand, we might get lucky and maybe they're dumbing it down with the intention of spreading info to any listeners. Who knows.

The other possibility is that the variances in the star itself are some form of communication. That's really the biggest type of beacon you could construct that Class I's might be able to recognize.

One article I read said that we should be excited about this discovery, not because it might be aliens, but just because it's the weirdest damn thing astronomers have ever seen.

1 Reply

Extra-Terrestrial Megastructures detected around a star?

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